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Monday, March 20, 2017

Coast to Coast to Coast Lies on Ukraine from Australian and Canadian

Moscow - Optimists believe that in time the truth always wins out. Skeptics
believe men and women are liars by nature, so machines are necessary to
catch them out. Pessimists believe that by the time that happens it
will be too late to make a practical difference.

Politics, the
pessimists add, is about gain, not about truth. So is journalism.

Here are two stories about the difference between Australia and
Canada in the way in which lying by ministers of state has been caught
out recently on the subject of the civil war in Ukraine.

Australia and
Canada are former British colonies, whose head of state is still the
British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. They are also parliamentary
democracies, and members of US treaty alliances which encourage them to
fight in US wars in exchange for US protection if they are attacked.
That’s the political practice, if not quite the truth.

The Australian story is of the way in which the government in
Canberra conceals from voters the truth about an incident in Ukraine
over which Australia’s prime minister planned to send troops to fight on
the Russian border. The incident occurred on July 17, 2014. It was the
destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, and the deaths of all 298
people on board; 38 of them Australian. For details of the secret
Australian plan to go to war, read this, first reported in July 2016.

Last week it was revealed in Canberra that the Attorney-General and
the Prime Minister have acknowledged between themselves, and in an
exchange of classified communications, that the MH17 incident was not
(repeat not) the Russian crime, or the crime of President Vladimir
Putin, which it is Australian policy to declare in public – in the
United Nations, in the local courts, and most often in the Australian
media. For details of the new story, click to read.

In other words, Attorney-General George Brandis (below, left) and
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (lead image, left; below, right) are
lying on a matter of life and death to their citizens, and of strategic
security for their state.

The lie is being repeated by the Australian media. They include not
only the state and commercial mainstream media, the latter dominated by
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. All the alternative media, social
media, and universities, think-tanks and non-government organizations
which supply them with newsfeed are doing the same. The blackout of the
truth is so total in Australia, not a word that the blackout is in force
has been reported either.

The only mainstream media report of the Australian government’s reaction to the MH17 incident, when it happened, was published on
September 19, 2014. This was a story, leaked by insiders, of how none
of the intelligence, military and political bureaucrats could agree
with each on who should decide what to do. That meant they couldn’t
agree on whether, as then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott wanted and
initially decided, a division of Australian troops should be sent to
fight in Ukraine, alongside Dutch ground troops and NATO and US air
support.

“There was no bureaucratic system for co-ordinating the
response to such an emergency. The PM, his staff and ministers had to
make decisions with little or no bureaucratic guidance.”

This leak, two months after the MH17 incident, came a month after the troop
intervention plan had been kyboshed at NATO headquarters. The leak was a
form of bureaucratic in-fighting after details of the secret war scheme
had been discussed and stopped. The reporter, a well-known parliament
lobby journalist named Laurie Oakes (right), hadn’t the faintest idea of
the truth he was helping to conceal. Nor did Oakes prove curious in
time.

The only report Brandis has made to parliament on the MH17 incident dates from October 2015.

Brandis had been attorney-general for just a month. He was asked
what the Australian Government assessment was of the MH17 incident
following the release of the report by the Dutch Safety Board. (DSB).
Brandis’s answer was carefully worded. The DSB had carried out “a
meticulous forensic investigation, and Australia has been closely
involved in that investigation through the Australian Transport Safety
Bureau. The final report sets out compelling evidence indicating the
type of missile and the launch site of the missile which brought down
MH17. Its findings are based on a forensic technical analysis of all of
the available evidence. It does not attribute responsibility for the
incident.”

Brandis also acknowledged he and the Dutch were still working on the
evidence. “The separate criminal investigation—as opposed to the
forensic investigation I have just spoken of—is facilitated through the
joint investigation team by a joint arrangement signed by Australia,
Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine… The investigation is
being coordinated by the Dutch
prosecution service. The focus of the joint investigation team [JIT] is
to ensure that the investigation is thorough and robust. On 20 August I
met with the Dutch Prosecutor General, Mr [Herman] Bolhaar [right],
when he and officials from the Dutch police and prosecution office came
to Canberra to discuss investigations with the government and the
Australian Federal Police, and I took the opportunity to assure them of
the Australian government’s full cooperation in the investigation.”

Brandis added an innuendo.

“We are deeply disappointed that Russia
used its power as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council to veto the draft resolution [on the establishment of an ad hoc
international criminal tribunal to prosecute crimes connected with the
shooting down of MH17]. Those responsible for crimes connected with the
shooting down of MH17 will not, however, be able to hide behind the
Russian veto.”

Brandis meant this to sound to parliament as if the
Russian government was hiding its culpability in the MH17 incident.

The truth, revealed last week in Brandis’s papers, is that Brandis
and Prime Minister Turnbull have been hiding what they, not Russian
government officials, know about the incident. A source in Canberra
close to these papers emerged following the release of this report last
week. The source identified himself as privy to the classified
intelligence on MH17 in the days and weeks which followed the incident.
The source was also privy to the discussion in the National Security
Committee of Cabinet (NSC), the topmost decision-making body in
Australia for Ukraine and Russia.

According to the new disclosures, the Australian Government believed
in 2014 — and Brandis and Turnbull believe still — that in the daylight
hours before MH17 was shot down, Ukrainian Government military forces
were using the overflight of civilian airlines in eastern Ukraine as
shadow and shield for attacks against ground targets in the belief the
separatist forces would not return fire for fear of hitting the civilian
airliners.

Army Colonel-General Victor Muzhenko (left) has been Chief of the
Ukrainian General Staff since July 3, 2014. Two weeks later he was in
command when MH17 was shot down. The Ukrainian Air Force commander that
day was Lieutenant-General Serhiy Drozdov (right), a career pilot of
fighter-bombers. Drozdov was removed from his post after the incident,
then reinstated six months later. No explanation for Drozdov’s removal has been published. He was formally appointed Air Force commander in July 2015.

The source has also revealed it was the Australian Government’s
conclusion that the Kiev regime did not close the airspace in the
Donbass region to civilian air traffic above the war zone because of
the operational advantage Malaysian Airlines transit gave to Ukrainian
Air Force operations. The Australian officials recognize this
calculation to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions on war crimes.
The source is sure the intelligence leading to this finding was
American, so the implication is that the US Government also shares the
Australian finding – in secret.

The Australian officials concluded — the source has reported — that
what had happened to MH17 was an unintentional accident on the part of
those who fired the BUK missile. Without intention, there was no crime
on the part of those on the ground, whoever they were — if they were the
Novorussian separatists, or a regular Ukrainian Army missile battery,
or a unit of the irregular forces paid by Igor Kolomoisky and others.
On the other hand, the provable crime in the Australian intelligence
papers was that of the Ukrainian government officials responsible for
using MH17 as a human shield. On July 17, 2014, the chain of Ukrainian
command and legal responsibility started with Drozdov and Muzhenko; and
above them, Defense Minister Colonel-General Valeriy Heletey (below,
left). Heletey was removed from office on October 14, three months
after the MH17 incident, and sent to the State Security Service, a
bodyguard unit. Above Heletey, there was President Petro Poroshenko
(right).

The two parts to the Australian government truth – the accidental
destruction of MH17, the intentional use of MH17 as a military shield —
can be verified in Australian government papers. For more on human
shielding in civil law, counter-targeting in military parlance, read this. Not a word, however, nor a suspicion has appeared in the Australian media so far.

Look carefully at the most recent report of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in which Brandis and the Dutch Attorney-General and Chief Prosecutor, Herman
Bolhaar, command their national representatives; for details of the
September 28, 2016, release and press conference, read this. Re-reading with hindsight, it can be seen that the Dutch are also concealing the human shield evidence.

At the end of last September this is how the JIT summed up
its findings.

“The scenario that flight MH17 was shot down by a
military aircraft was explored and discounted on the basis of radar
data, witness testimonies and forensic research. The JIT has obtained
sufficient radar data, both from Russia and Ukraine, which – when viewed
in conjunction – provide a full picture of the airspace over eastern
Ukraine. This shows that at the time of the crash, no other airplanes
were in the vicinity that could have shot down flight MH17. The Russian
Federation mentioned last week that they have found ‘new’ primary radar
images. Based on those images the Russian Federation concludes also that
there was no second airplane that could have shot down MH17.”

Re-read the phrases: “no other airplanes in the vicinity that could
have shot down MH17”; “no second airplane that could have shot down
MH17”. This is a finding by the governments of Australia, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Malaysia and the Ukraine. But it is ambiguous,
blank, on the crucial point – were there Ukrainian Air Force planes in
the air at the time armed with ground-attack weapons? Was an air-defence
missile battery unit on the ground likely to suspect a bomb attack from
the air during the last crucial minutes of MH17’s transit?

The more detail the JIT findingsspell
out, the more obviously the JIT report avoids answering these
questions. Instead, in its most exhaustive assessment of the evidence,
the JIT avoids what the Australian Government already has concluded:

“In
the investigation so far, we have come to the conclusion that we can
also rule out the air-to-air scenario. What follows is the explanation
about how we reached that conclusion. If flight MH17 would have been
shot down by another airplane, this plane would have been shown on the
radar images. There has been quite some discussion about the radar data.
The JIT has acquired sufficient and crucial radar images. These images
were made available to the JIT by both Ukraine and the Russian
Federation. Recently, through intensive investigation, the JIT found
another video file containing relevant primary radar data of the area
which had been recorded by a mobile radar in Ukraine. At the time, this
radar was used to test new software. Although it had a limited range, it
still detected flight MH17 and this completes the image further.”

“As far as we are concerned, the discussion about the radar images
can be concluded. Today we wish to emphasize that the material that we
now have is more than sufficient to draw conclusions in the criminal
investigation. For building up a solid criminal file, it will not be
necessary to gather more evidentiary material. In addition to the radar
images that we have, witnesses have been heard, such as the air traffic
controllers who were working at that time; the JIT has an audio file of
the conversations between the Ukrainian air traffic controllers and the
airplanes that passed through the Ukrainian airspace on 17 July 2014,
including flight MH17.”

“All these data together provide a sufficiently complete picture of
the air traffic in the direct vicinity of flight MH17 and based on this
picture the JIT concludes that there was no other aircraft flying in the
vicinity of flight MH17 that could have shot it down. This conclusion
in itself can already rule out that scenario. The Russian Federation
mentioned last week that they have found ‘new’ primary radar images.
Based on those images even the Russian Federation concludes that there
was no second airplane that could have shot down MH17.”

Repetition of the same phrases doesn’t make a lie; it does contrive
to camouflage the truth. That’s the truth the Australian government is
holding in secret, and no public medium or press organ in the country
will report.

The Canadian story of the lie of state about the Ukraine war is
different in two ways. The first difference is that the liar, Foreign
Minister Chrystia Freeland, arranged with a reporter and the management
of the Toronto Globe and Mail to plant the lie in a press conference.
The second difference is that half the Canadian press, including a
fraction of the mainstream media and most of the alt-media, not only
didn’t believe Freeland’s lie. They have started investigating and
publishing the truth.

For the story of Freeland’s campaign to defend her Ukraine policy,
and for links to the mainstream media reporters defending her, click to
open here.

The campaign started at a press conference called by Freeland on
March 6, in the lobby of the House of Commons in Ottawa. The purpose
of the presser was to explain the official extension for another two
years of Canada’s Operation UNIFIER. That’s the code name for what the
Defence Ministry in Ottawa calls “military
training and capacity-building assistance to Ukrainian Forces personnel
in support of Ukraine’s efforts to maintain sovereignty, security, and
stability.”

At the question-and-answer exchanges on March 6, Freeland did all the
talking. The Globe and Mail report of what was said, written by Robert
Fife, the newspaper’s Ottawa bureau chief, ignored the defence minister
entirely.

Above is a picture of the two ministers, as Freeland addresses a
question from a reporter to her right, who is invisible to the camera.
Sajjan (circle-1) is on Freeland’s left, his mouth shut. At the rear of
the picture, in the centre of the row of reporters, the only male among
them is Fife (circle-2). In front of Freeland, on the podium but
screened from the reporters present, Freeland’s briefing book is visible
(circle-3). The camera has picked up several script lines which
Freeland and her staff had decided in advance that she would answer when
asked.

Below is the moment after Fife had asked Freeland his question, according to
the newspaper version. He is tilting his head leftwards, parallel with
Freeland’s tilt, and he has extended his arm with his recorder towards
her as she answers. As she does so, Freeland looks directly at Fife.
The state radio tape of what Freeland said can be listened to here in the first 34 seconds.

Another version from
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reveals exactly what Fife asked
Freeland:

“The Russians don’t like you. They’ve banned you from the
country. Recently, there has been a series of articles about you and
your maternal grandparents making accusations that he was a Nazi
collaborator in pro-Russian websites. I’d like to get your view on do
you see this as a disinformation campaign by the Russians to try to
smear you and discredit you? Which they have to have a tendency to have
done.”

This transcript, along with the Huffington Post Canada version,
reveal more than the state radio excerpt aired later. “Let me start,
Rob,” Freeland began with a personal note, “by saying that I don’t think
all Russians dislike me. I have many close and good Russian friends and
I very much enjoyed living and working in Moscow as a foreign
correspondent.”

At Fife’s prompting, Freeland was avoiding the question. Instead,
she started her claim that reports of her lying about her family and her
policy in Ukraine are part of Russian efforts “to destabilize” the US
and Canadian political systems. “I am confident”, Freeland declared, “in
our country’s democracy, and I am confident that we can stand up to and
see through those efforts.”

Freeland’s claim has triggered a great deal of standing up to and
seeing through, though this was not quite the democracy she was
confident Fife and the Globe and Mail would reflect. Instead, a
succession of stories in the Canadian press has intensified
investigation of what Freeland’s family did during World War II; what
Freeland has known about the war record; and what she, her family and
their Ukrainian associates all stand for now, as the Canadians renew
Operation UNIFIER and the Ukrainian civil war enters its third year.
The Canadian media investigations also reveal that it was Freeland
herself who arranged for Fife to ask the question, for which her answer
was already typed out in front of her. Is it true that Fife and his
newspaper agreed to play Freeland’s patsy? Fife was asked by email:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Fife and the Globe’s editor-in-chief David Walmsley aren’t able to
black out reporting of what has happened. They are Canadian, not
Australian. But they refuse to answer questions about their role.